After the finals of the Winter cup, Kuroko finds Aomine waiting for him. They finally have a long-overdue discussion about what happened in their third year. Implied spoilers for anime-only fans. Drama with Minor Angst, I-3

Kuroko Tetsuya walked the last bit of his way home alone, after Kagami turned off onto his own street, letting the quiet settle over him. As the echoes of his team’s voices, of exultation and disbelief and, really, quite a lot of screaming died away, they left one thing behind.

Aomine is straying. Kagami is enthusiastic. Momoi has a plan. And Riko is going to make this all come out right, no matter how many basketball idiots of either gender she has to wrangle to do it. Drama with Developing Friendship, I-3

Riko rubbed her forehead. “Both of you shut up!” she barked. “Kagami, get back to work or I’ll triple your training drills! And you,” she rounded on Aomine, who had the good sense to look just a little uneasy as she marched towards him. “If you want a match with any of my players, you can just get your coach to set it up with me. Now out!” She body-checked him out the door, ignoring his squawk of protest. “You have your own practice to be at.”

Imayoshi decides to return Riko’s favor by throwing Aomine, Kuroko, and Kagami together in a match. It’s a different kind of revelation for each of them. Drama, Character Sketch, Romance, I-3

Aomine Daiki was a cynical sort of guy these days, so he wasn’t really surprised when Imayoshi-san started showing up at club practices as soon as the national exams were over. Imayoshi-san was a bit like Daiki, really; he got bored without a challenge. Besides, Wakamatsu seemed happy enough to have his ‘advice’, so who cared?

At least that was what Daiki thought until Imayoshi-san decided his next challenge would be Daiki.

Aomine decides that, if Kagami isn’t going anywhere, he has to be included. This gives Kuroko a moment of uncertainty, but the direct approach might be the best one after all. Porn, Romance, Fluff, I-4

Aomine Daiki loved a really good game of basketball. As far as he was concerned, it was the best thing in the world, even better than sex.

Aomine always seems to be searching for his boundaries. Kuroko decides it’s time to give him one. D/s, Porn with Characterization, I-4

“That’s what’s most important to you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Having something to push against that can stop you.”

Daiki’s mouth crooked up at one corner. “Not like that’s a secret. It’s what you went looking for, wasn’t it? When you left.”

“One of the things,” Tetsu agreed. “To make you see me again. To bring you back. But Kagami-kun has his own reasons for playing you; we’re partners, but it isn’t right to use his game for my own purposes. I think it’s time I was more direct.”

After a tournament match, Aomine calls Kuroko to blow off some steam and Kuroko thinks this has some fascinating possibilities. D/s Phonesex, I-4

Daiki had thought it might be weird, the first time he played Kagami and Tetsu in a tournament match after the three of them started sleeping together. More precisely, after he’d started taking orders from Tetsu, in bed. Would it spill over? Would any of them hesitate? Would Tetsu look at him the way he did when he had Daiki down on the bed and begging?

Kuroko wants a tangible marker of his committment to Kagami and Aomine, and of how they belong to him, and that’s when other people start noticing what’s going on. D/s, Romance, Porn, Drama, I-4

It was Daiki who mentioned it first, stroking his thumb along the line of Taiga’s collarbone one afternoon when they were all tangled together in Tetsuya’s bed, still a little sticky but catching their breaths again.

Aomine, Kuroko, and Kagami finally all wind up in bed together. Aomine thinks he knows how this will work, but when there are actual emotions at stake he’s probably the one with the least idea what’s going on. Romance, Porn with Characterization, I-4

“So.” Daiki flexed his foot and stretched his leg over the length of Seirin’s changing room bench, working the threatening cramp out of his calf. “New school year. Seems like the kind of thing we could stand to celebrate a little.”

Kuroko hauls Aomine to Seirin, and Momoi comes with them. The team is delighted, if a little taken aback by Kuroko’s unnoticeability and Aomine’s lack of condition. Kuroko is all the more convinced he’s brought them to the right place after he meets Kagami, and sees the challenge he has the potential to offer Aomine. Drama, I-3

The door of Tetsuya’s classroom slammed open and Aomine stood glowering in the doorway. “Tetsu!”

Ah. He’d finally heard. Tetsuya put down his sandwich and waited while Aomine stalked through his scattering classmates to slam a piece of paper down on Tetsuya’s desk. The header, as much of it as was visible under Aomine’s hand, said Sei. “What the hell is this?” Aomine demanded.

Aomine is increasingly annoyed by the attention Kuroko is paying Kagami, and for that matter everyone else on the team, and annoyed by the restraints Aida puts on him, but Kagami does pique his interest a little. Drama, I-3

Daiki had thought he’d gotten used to just how ridiculous it was that Tetsu had dragged him to this no-name school and dropped him into a basketball club that apparently had nothing going for it but enthusiasm. But this was where he put his foot down. The very idea of ‘announcing his intentions’ during morning assembly in order to ‘prove’ himself for this new team was laughable. He was the ace of Teikou, he didn’t have a damn thing to prove to a team that couldn’t even get to the Interhigh.

Kagami is pleased with his new team and his new challenge, though puzzled by the tension between Kuroko and Aomine. A practice match against Kaijou tells him at least a little of what the tension is over, and also gives him his first taste of working with Kuroko in a real game. Drama, I-3

Taiga swatted his alarm clock into silence, rolled over, and smiled up at the ceiling. He woke up with a smile a lot, lately.

Okay, so his strongest teammate was a total jerk, and he honestly thought Kuroko liked scaring the liver out of people by popping up out of nowhere, and their coach was clearly some kind of demon. He could deal with all of that and more, because basketball was interesting again. A challenge again, and more than a challenge. A bone-cracking, tendon-snapping, nerve-burning hurdle to get over, like it hadn’t been for over a year since he came back to this country.

Momoi knows that the problems between Aomine and Kuroko and Kagami have to be ironed out before they start the Interhigh preliminaries, and she has a plan. That doesn’t make it easy, though. Drama, Angst, I-3

Momoi Satsuki liked Seirin. They were a challenge, and she liked a challenge to her skills just as much as any of the boys did.

Aomine plays against Seihou, and the team that surprises him the most is his own. He watches Kagami and Kuroko play against Shuutoku, and understands some of what went wrong the previous year. Drama, Action, I-3

On the second day of the Tokyo preliminary finals, Daiki’s heartfelt comment was, “About damn time.” He shrugged off Satsuki’s admonishing look. “Oh, come on, I’ve been bored out of my mind. Shinsenkan was pathetic, and even those Touou guys weren’t exactly a challenge.” Which had been a great disappointment, after he’d hauled himself through the whole month of A-block matches on the hope that the ‘Kings of the West’ would be at least a bit of fun. Or at least that their first match in the final block would be. But no, not so you’d notice. If it hadn’t been ridiculous to imagine, he’d actually have thought Touou was holdingback against him.

Kuroko gets a chance to play the way he wants to, again, with Aomine against Kaijou. When he has to play without his partners against Touou, though, he finds himself hitting a wall. Drama, Action, Angst, I-3

“All right,” Hyuuga-san called, waving them to gather close. “We’ve played Kaijou once, but don’t let that make you overconfident. I doubt they were going all out, not in a practice match, and Kasamatsu knows what we can do, now. Stay sharp.” He nodded as everyone chorused agreement, and then reached up to wrap a hand around the back of Aomine’s neck. “Except for you,” he added. “You need to calm down.” He shook Aomine a little, holding his rather startled gaze. “Kaijou isn’t running away, and you don’t need to hunt them down for pity’s sake. Breathe.”

Tetsuya was actually the one who followed that order, breathing out as one thread of tension uncoiled down his back. He had been right, so right, to bring Aomine to Seirin.

Kuroko decides to push Aomine a little further, and offers to spank him for breaking his collar (again). Aomine is perfectly pleased, but Kagami needs a bit more reassurance. D/s, Porn, I-4

“You know,” Tetsu murmured, fingers stroking over the line of Daiki’s new collar, “sometimes I think you let them break just so I’ll put another on you.”

Daiki looked up at him, relaxed by the feeling of being collared again. “You did say that you would, as often as necessary.”

The corners of Tetsu’s mouth curled up faintly, and he set his fingers under Daiki’s chin, keeping his head tipped back. “I did, and I will. Though I’m starting to wonder if I should punish you, when you break another one, for putting me to the trouble.”